


Down the Line

by fishew



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Spoilers, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:39:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10048361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishew/pseuds/fishew
Summary: Alvin’s never really been into the whole open communication thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Some dialogue lifted from the game.

Alvin gets his first lilium orb at thirteen, a year out from under his uncle’s grip and scared shitless every day that it’ll all fall apart on him, and it takes him only a few seconds to realize just how dangerous the orb can be. Leave it to the Rieze Maxians, he thinks with a kind of resigned disgust, to discover a way to meld minds and then waste it on _cooperative fighting_ _._

Because Alvin knows this: in the wrong hands, _anyone_ who links to him through the orb can sense his intentions. See how deep his fear of his uncle runs, maybe learn just what he’s had to do to survive. _Discover where his mother is._ All liabilities he absolutely can’t afford at this stage in the long game. But working in Rieze Maxia without the boost of a lilium orb is like fighting with a missing limb; another disadvantage he can’t allow himself.

So his desperation makes the decision an easy one, and familiar enough after years spent training under Gilland. Alvin simply replaces his studied blank faces with disarming smiles, and never lets any link partner know what he’s feeling.

**

The first giant beast of the day bursts onto their path with a roar, but traveling with Milla has everyone so accustomed to sudden attacks that Jude and Alvin don’t even speak before initiating a lilium link. For a second, there’s that weird feeling of looking out from two sets of eyes at two completely different heights; then Alvin blinks, and the link settles in, and their minds are both focused only on the fight.

As partners go, Jude is a relentless explosion on the battlefield, for all that he’s small and normally so gentle. He runs headfirst into the fray with seeming abandon, doesn’t even need to look back because he already knows Alvin is moving in tandem. The magic of the link doesn’t provide mind control or precognition, but instead, an all-encompassing kind of awareness: awareness of exactly where the other is; awareness that, at least for this moment, they’re both moving towards the same purpose.

They run circles around the beast, give it no time to recover between their blows. When Jude darts forward to land a punch, Alvin has already broken its guard with a hefty swing of his sword. When Jude retreats, Alvin’s there, gun in hand, to block the beast from following him. He shoots one more blast directly at Jude’s back, and Jude, without even looking behind him, simply redirects the force and pushes it into the beast’s face. With a roar of pain, the beast falls and doesn’t rise again.

In that one moment of victory distilled to its purest, Alvin allows himself to be in awe of how easily the lilium link works, how well he and Jude fight together. In that second, he can almost enjoy the link for what it is.

He knows, of course, that partners don’t always react the same way to a link. There’s Rowen, who’s maintained his orb for decades; when he and Alvin work together, Alvin’s grateful he only feels measured reassurance flow from the other end of the link. The others, young, inexperienced and unshielded, are always harder to deal with. Leia rushes in prematurely, impatient to prove herself, while Elize’s hesitation on the battlefield is a danger that Alvin is always running to cover. Then there’s Milla - the absolute worst offender of the group. Alvin isn’t sure if _any_ mental block can contain the sheer amount of willpower filling her deceptively slight frame. To him, Milla’s link is an endless rush of focused energy, relentless and unyielding until it crashes around him and drags him along with her tide. Even with her powers weakened by the spyrix, Milla is always a force to be reckoned with.

And as for Jude...

He turns to Alvin now that the fight’s over, adrenaline flushing his cheeks. They’re still connected by the lilium orbs and Alvin senses a jumbled flash of emotions from him: excitement, regret, a mix of confidence and uncertainty, and then, briefly as he glances at Alvin, the sensation of attraction -

Alvin cuts the link. Can’t quite tell if he did it fast enough, if Jude knows that he felt it. His own expression is careful not to change from a lazy grin of victory.

Well, of course he knows all about _that_. Jude’s hilariously misguided little crush on him doesn’t exactly need a full blown mind link to discern, just a working pair of eyes and some actual experience in the world. A sheltered kid like Jude suddenly torn out of his normal life and thrown on the run with people like Milla and himself? Alvin would have been surprised if it _hadn’t_ resulted in some level of admiration bleeding all too quickly into attraction.

The kind thing, Alvin knows, would be to ignore it. Everyone has to go through the misfortune of experiencing their first terrible crush - crushes, really - at some point, after all. It might be even kinder to just go ahead and let him down, directly and tactfully.

But Alvin hasn’t considered himself a kind person for a long time now, and anyway, he didn’t take on this job to be nice to Jude. So he doesn’t stop himself from reaching out, ruffling Jude’s hair, and maybe letting his grin grow a little wider as the pink high on Jude’s cheeks darkens.  
  
“Nice going, kid,” he says, just to rub it in further.

Jude huffs in frustration and pushes Alvin’s hand away. “Don’t call me that,” he says.

Alvin laughs. “‘Kid’ is off the table? You have to admit, it’s kinda true though. My advice to you, enjoy your youth while it lasts, before you turn into a crusty old man like Rowen.”

Jude glares at him. For someone normally so sensible, he sure has a lot of hangups about his age. Alvin supposes most people would think it’s cute. “Well, what about you?” he demands. “You’re an adult too - don’t I get a chance to be more like you before jumping right into middle age?”

Alvin holsters his gun and spends a few more seconds than necessary straightening out his jacket. And _this_ is why he never bothers holding himself back when teasing Jude, channeling his irritation at this naive boy with a charmed life into jokes that lack just enough bite to seem harmless.

“Trust me, kid,” he says with an easy smile and a wink. “You _don’t_ want to be like me.”

**

The fight’s over, and Alvin intends to keep this one in particular from occurring again. Presa is defeated, sprawled out in the dirt. As she looks up at him accusingly, he forces himself not to avert his eyes; he owes that much to her after what they’ve both been through. But he can’t quite bear to let her speak. When she starts to open her mouth, his gun is immediately drawn and pointed before she can even finish drawing breath.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not interested in any last words.” _I don’t want you to try and give me an out._

He admires that her face doesn’t crumple, how she keeps whatever she may be feeling tightly in check and only sneers at him in reply. _Do it then_ _,_ the look in her eyes dare him. _This is how it’s going to be, is it?_

Alvin just stares down at her. The line from his arm to his gun to her is straight and steady as he lets himself remember, in this last moment, what it had been like with Presa before it’d all gone down the drain - “better times”, if he can really call them that. Hell, even when they were happiest together, they both must have known their circumstances wouldn’t let their relationship last.

And now they’re here, and whatever residual feelings for her that still remain, he can’t let her go again when his loyalties to Milla look shaky enough as is. _This is how it’s going to be._  He does what he has to do, just like always.

His finger tightens on the trigger, slowly, as if he can’t quite let himself go completely. But it still seems too fast for him -

“Alvin!” Jude’s voice rings out loud and clear behind him. He hears the kid dash up to him, but doesn’t turn around. “The battle’s over,” Jude says sharply, like a reminder.

Alvin draws in a breath.

Anger rises up inside him, sharp and acrid at the back of his throat. This kid, this _goddamn kid_ who’s had it easy all his life, who doesn’t have a clue what Alvin and Presa have had to do, who still wants to hold Alvin to those ridiculous standards of his, still wants to make Alvin into a _better person_. Alvin hates it; he hates Jude; he hates that a part of him wishes it hadn’t taken him so long to meet someone who wants to help him with no ulterior motives. He hates that any of them are here right now.

_Give me an out._

He lets out his breath.

“Fine,” he says, tone deceptively light. He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I’ll let her go if you insist.”

He hates, too, that he sees relief on Presa’s face for a split second before she steels herself again. “This is really how you live your life, huh?” Her voice drips with scorn. She turns to Jude like she can’t stand to look at Alvin anymore. “I’d watch your back around _him_ ,” she says. “He’s just playing with you, and someday he’ll throw you away.”

Alvin doesn’t bother refuting her words, because what’s the point? She doesn’t understand why he ended up like this, but a sob story still won’t soften what he did to her.

And then Jude replies, and Alvin’s stomach drops.

“I’d like to think Alvin knows how I feel,” he says, without hesitation or any trace of irony.

Alvin’s head snaps to him, disbelief visibly evident for once. Jude catches the movement from the side and returns his shocked stare with a serious, reassuring look in his eyes, like he’s trying his best to support Alvin through all of this, like he knows Alvin’s made a few bad decisions in his past but Jude’s sure he can overcome them in time. Alvin is speechless.

He neither wants nor deserves the stupid amount of faith Jude seems to have in him. To know Alvin’s all too aware of his emotions through their lilium link is one thing. Jude’s a smart kid, and Alvin’s had an inkling that he’s known for a while now. To explicitly trust him with the knowledge like this, to put it out in the open as a sign that Jude thinks Alvin is good enough to hand this advantage to - that’s something else altogether.

Presa snorts like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. Alvin can’t really blame her.  

It’s not until later, linked with Jude again in the middle of another battle, that he surprises himself by wanting to break his cardinal rule - although whether to warn Jude or to thank him, he still doesn’t quite know. He wants to tell Jude that he _is_ kind of grateful Jude trusts him so much to do the right thing, but it’s totally, completely misplaced. Wants to let him know that he’ll be sorry when this is all over and he’ll have to leave Milla’s group for good. That, just maybe, a part of him will miss Jude’s do-gooder antics when he’s gone, even when it makes him want to slap Jude over the head on a daily basis. He wants to say sorry that he’s a mess.

But he can’t quite let himself drop his guard, can’t forget just what his endgame is here, and eventually, the right time for it passes.

**

It feels strange to fight someone after you’ve been linked so often. Alvin can predict most of Jude’s moves at this point, but it doesn’t make things any easier when it’s exactly the same for Jude. His blows are powerful when they manage to land, but Jude’s much faster than he’ll ever be, and they’re both running purely on a rage that numbs any hit.

With a start, Alvin realizes it’s been a long time since he’s fought by himself like this.

At some point, the anger drains out just as suddenly as it filled him, leaving only the heavy ache of shame and exhaustion. _What’s the point of this bullshit anymore?_ His fists drop. He lets Jude throw him onto the ground and knock his face into the dirt again and again - he deserves it, anyway. With Leia unconscious just a few feet away from them, he lets Jude drip tears all over his ascot, then drag him up by it to yell in his face.

And then, for whatever damn reason, Jude stills. Actually holds a hand out to him as a peace offering. Alvin’s eyes dart up to his face, and in Jude’s eyes, he sees nothing but a willingness to forgive, even if he’s not quite there yet. It’s incredible how even now, after everything that’s happened and after what Alvin has _j_ _ust_ done, Jude still wants to try and find a way to help him.

“Let’s get moving, Alvin,” Jude says. The warmth in his tone is almost worse than a condemnation.

Alvin pushes him off and walks away.

**

Somehow, he ends up back with the group. Somehow, he’s _allowed_ to go back to them. It’s less of a triumphant reunion and more of a complete accident - he sees Agria about to attack, and suddenly, some protective gut instinct is propelling him forward and sending him down a path where everyone seems to already know his inevitable role except for him.

Alvin’s so damn tired of that. If there’s some grand cosmic joke about his supposedly actual decent nature deep down, he’d like to finally be in on it, because he really wants to be able to redeem himself properly this time. No more half-assing his last-last-last chance, no more running off whenever things get a little too tough to handle. He’s running out of places to run _to_ , for one thing.  

In a way, it’s actually a bit of a relief that Jude and the others know all about him now. Maybe not his whole sob story, sure, but they’ve certainly seen enough of him at his absolute worst to dispel any last, lingering illusions about him. The transparency of their discomfort is almost ... freeing. Elize is the best out of all of them when it comes to letting him know on the regular that she can’t stand his lying guts, and every time she does it, he can’t help but laugh to himself.

Yeah, maybe it’s a little messed up, but finally, _finally_ , he knows where he stands with them. Even if the actual place where he’s standing is rock bottom, everyone has to start somewhere, right? A real start on a level playing field, not the kind of introduction he pulled while playing an underhanded role for a job. Something he can take pride in seeing through all the way.  

So Alvin stays with the group. He lets their eyes shutter when they look at him and does his best to watch their back in a fight. That gets a little harder because linking is trickier now, that once smooth push and pull between his partners long gone, but Alvin’s fine with that too. In a way, he’s been a stranger to them all along, but now both sides are aware of it. It shouldn’t be simple work to link with a stranger.

(He keeps his own roiling mix of guilt and uncertainty firmly under lock and key to make things easier for them. Some habits are hard to break so quickly.)

Slowly, as they make their way through this dying, colorless Elympios that looks nothing like the home in his tightly grasped handful of memories, things begin to change. Leia still can’t quite look him in the face, or maybe he’s the one who can’t look at _her_ without remembering her bleeding out under the trees, but she stops reassuring him in loud, too-bright tones that everything is fine and in the past, and he tries to give her the space she needs. Rowan pats him on the back after a successful battle and speaks to him like the kindly uncle he was never allowed to have; Alvin never realized that he’d missed the steadiness of his link until now, a figure he could depend on instead of the other way around. It occurs to him that to Rowen, he’s practically still a child, his lifetime of regrets only a small fraction of the time Rowen’s been in service to his country, and the thought helps soothe that franticness under his skin.

And Elize, she kisses him chastely under the bright Elympian moon and promises to be his friend, innocently direct in the way only a child can be, and he thinks that slogging towards an indeterminate point of self-absolution might be worth it for that single moment of gratitude.

There’s some of that old, cocky spring to his step as he runs into the last big battle and snaps his lilium orb together with Jude’s. Muzet and Gaius may be the most intimidating opponents they’ve faced yet, but here in this moment, Alvin and Jude are perfectly in sync in a way that hasn’t happened since Jude let Alvin return to their group, a familiar smoothness in how they coordinate their attacks and retreats. It’s a rush, to work together so well again, and he can tell Jude feels the same way. Something like relief flashes down the link to him, feels almost like what he’s been missing this entire time he was in Elympios.

 _Welcome back_.

And Alvin knows where he belongs now. It’s not a place, neither Elympios nor Rieze Maxia; it’s wherever this ragtag group of people who have gotten under his skin go. It’s with Milla, it’s with Elize. It’s with Jude, always with Jude.

 _I belong here,_ he thinks, the certainty of it swelling fit to burst inside his chest, and maybe his shields aren’t as strong as they were before, because he thinks he can feel Jude’s response in a bright, strong affirmative.  

He raises both sword and gun and prepares for his final blow.

**

A year later, Alvin finds himself back on Elympios, standing in front of Jude and a precocious little girl he knows he’s going to be spending too much time with. Seriously, he’s got to stop letting himself being herded along by kids.

“Aren’t you one of Jude’s friends?” the girl - Elle? - demands. She sounds suspicious of him. Alvin wants to tell her she’s got the right idea.

He folds his arms and glances over at Jude instead. “Hmm,” he says, pretending to deliberate. It’s not too hard of an act. “Tough to say.”

Jude just rolls his eyes. “Yes, he is,” he tells Elle firmly. “And he knows it.”

Alvin allows himself to grin at him, and lets his grin widen when Jude returns it with a smile of his own. _Yeah_ _._ He does know, even though it never hurts to hear it from Jude’s mouth again _._ Jude has let him know all along that he trusts Alvin, values him, believes that he can change for the better.  
  
He’s not quite at the finish line yet, but he’s come a long way. For the first time in years, Alvin wants to let Jude know how he feels too.


End file.
